


The Boy Who Fell

by busaikko



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Coming Out, Dudley redeemed, Gay Bashing, Gay Male Character, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-08
Updated: 2011-11-08
Packaged: 2017-10-28 07:24:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boxing teaches Dudley discipline and how to work hard for what he wants.  Or who he wants.  For the prompt <i>I would like Dudley to help someone/save someone in a hurt/comfort fashion.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boy Who Fell

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by the incomprable liseuse.
> 
> Written for the 2011 Dudley Redeemed challenge. I liked the Icarus imagery of the prompt's song lyrics, and wanted to write about someone who fell – out of the magical world, out of canon, out of grace.
> 
>  **Warning(s):** attempted gay bashing

> One last thing I beg you please just before you go  
> I've watched you fly on paper wings halfway around the world  
> Until they burned up in the atmosphere and sent you spiraling down  
> Landing somewhere far from here with no one else around  
> To catch you falling down  
> And I'm looking at you now  
> Paper Wings - Rise Against

Dudley has boxing to thank for his career in interior design. He loves his parents – unlike most of his friends, he hasn't felt the need to rebel against them – but he never had a lot of discipline at home. Boxing teaches him discipline and how to work hard for what he wants. It also gives him good solid muscles and a nose broken three times, so when he tells people what he does, they keep their comments to themselves and ask him about feature walls or the best way to display collectible plates.

Dudley thinks both are revolting, especially in conjunction, but he tucks his feelings behind a social smile. He learned manners and respect from boxing as well, and the ability to pick his fights outside the ring.

After leaving Smeltings, Dudley starts a course in Corporate Management at the University of Greater Whinging which he loathes so much that he considers quitting school his second year. _So study something else,_ Coach Singh tells him. _It's your life. What are you afraid of?_ Dudley immediately pictures the cupboard under the stairs where his cousin Harry had lived when they were kids, full of dust and spiders and with a lock on the outside. Dudley was given everything he wanted, back then, and Harry had nothing.

He'd hated Harry, but five years after they'd last seen each other he could admit to himself he'd been scared, and not just of Harry's magical powers and strange magical friends. His childhood fears were, what if his parents died and he ended up being treated like Harry? – or even worse, what if he fell out of his parents' favour and they made Harry their son and put him in the cupboard? He never understood what made Harry different, and he never wanted to make the terrible mistake of being different in his parents' eyes.

Still, in university Dudley has Coach Singh's support and his boxer's perseverance, so he talks to his parents. He's relieved when they fuss and worry for his future but don't call him a failure or a disappointment or weird. Something inside him relaxes.

In his final year at Greater Whinging Dudley remodels the foyer and living room for a project, and turns the cupboard into a walk-in closet with a built-in rack to display all thirty pairs of his mother's shoes. He takes the few things of Harry's that turn up: a dirty plush rabbit wedged into a corner, some yellowed papers stuffed into cracks to keep out the draught, a tin full of pencil stubs and broken wax crayons that Dudley had probably discarded, or more likely broken on purpose to keep Harry from enjoying them.

Through connections with one of his father's old Smeltings' classmates, Dudley gets a decent job designing and building sets for catalogue photo shoots. Lining up fake books, setting tables, ironing curtains, and sewing covers for throw pillows gets a bit tedious, but the cheque every fortnight lets him pay the rent on his flat by himself.

He sticks out the job for three years, and then gets an offer to do basically the same thing for a film company specializing in period dramas. He earns even more money and starts saving for a house. He's comfortable, for the most part, but there's still something he has to do. One week he braces himself, invites his mother out to lunch, and tells her he's bisexual while waiting for the dessert trolley to come around. He's never said _sex_ to her before, and his face feels hot.

His mother puts her napkin over her mouth and blinks back tears while looking intently at a potted ficus tree. "I never was clever with houseplants," she says finally, and moves the napkin briskly to catch the two fat tears that fall, one from each eye. Her voice doesn't waver at all, but Dudley's not fooled, and he's not going to let her change the subject to potting soil.

"I'm not seeing anyone now," Dudley says. His mother sniffs, and it's hard not to hear it as a censure. "But I might. And they might not be a girl."

"Your father," she says, still sounding calm, "warned me I'd make you turn out wrong."

"Aw, Mum," Dudley says, deftly reduced to feeling like a ten-year-old on the verge of a tantrum. He reaches over and puts his hand on her arm. She feels thin and fragile, like those fancy dishes she collects and hangs on the wall. "It's nothing like that, Mum. Don't cry. Wasn't Jilly Whatsit just at her daughter's lesbian wedding? Wearing that awful hat?"

Another tear escapes and is blotted before it can leave a track in his mother's face powder. "The British used to be so good at hats."

"I want you to be at my wedding," Dudley says, swept away by a horrifying sticky wave of sentimentality.

His mother takes a deep breath and lowers the napkin, folding it discreetly to hide a lipstick mark. "We only want you to be happy," she says, and pats Dudley gently. "And what about grandchildren?" Her chin goes up, hiding a wobble.

"You loathe children," Dudley blurts out, feeling like an elastic stretched to its limits and released, loose and a little shaky. He has a hopefully repressable urge to belch loudly.

His mother gives him a reproachful look, and then dissolves into high tittering giggles, barely caught by the hand she uses to cover her mouth, as if she's feeling the same kind of released tension. "I really do," she confesses when she has herself back under control. "They're messy and they smell odd, and people expect me to coo over their pictures."

Dudley knows the feeling: his friendship with Piers never recovered after being shown the video of his kid's vaginal birth. "Dad's going to go ballistic," Dudley says, and finally spots their waiter winding through the tables with the trolley.

"Timing." His mother looks thoughtful, but doesn't say anything more.

Maybe half a year on from that, Dudley's got used to his mother sending him texts asking about whether this or that celebrity is gay, as if he was best mates with all of queer Britain. He's sitting on the sofa with his dad after Sunday dinner, drinking beer and watching the WestWhingers omnibus, when his dad points his bottle at Martin and Ali making eyes at each other at Margo's third wedding and says, "Not right having bloody queers on my telly."

"Oi," Dudley says, sharp. "That's me you're talking about." He doesn't push people around a lot these days, but he knows how to use his voice as a warning, and generally his broken nose and solid build plus the voice make people reconsider starting something.

His dad frowns, like something incomprehensible has just happened, the same way he used to look at Harry when things went wrong. Dudley doesn't say anything.

"It's different," his dad says, and Dudley can hear the edge of placation in the weakness of the words.

Dudley takes a long swallow of beer. "Well, yeah," he says. "Martin's still with Chris and they're talking about starting a family." He shakes his head. "Cheating bastard."

He doesn't usually swear in his parents' house, but his dad doesn't say anything. Dudley guesses he won, in a way.

Dudley buys himself a lavender button-down shirt that stretches tight over the width of his shoulders, and then a pink necktie, and then a pair of outrageously expensive leather boots. He goes through a few months when he occasionally wears all of that at once, half-wanting someone to say something ignorant so he can punch them. He figures it's because work's so busy he barely has time for his daily run, much less a hard training session. He thinks about blowing his savings on a flash car, the same restlessness at the root of the urge.

Come the end of October he's in London for an auction. Half the day has been spent with his mobile to his ear, making decisions and getting expenses approved. The company doesn't need the Victorian wardrobe or the Tudor stools right away, but there's warehouse space and, Dudley argues, it's better to buy cheap now then at a premium when they're desperate later on.

At least some of his courses in business paid off, he supposes.

He's free after four-thirty and takes advantage of the warm sunlight to go for a ramble, getting completely lost until he happens on the river, getting his bearings, and then losing himself again. He finds cobbled roads and odd-shaped parks where the trees are already turning red and gold. He watches the sun go down from Hampstead Heath, hands shoved in his pockets and feeling content, before heading for the Underground. He gets off at his local stop and decides not to take the bus, buying a bar of Fruit and Nut at a corner shop to eat on the walk home.

He feels like all the walking made something inside get untangled and easy, and for the first time in a while he's _not_ spoiling for a fight. So it's ironic, he supposes, that he spots three men cornering someone down the alley behind the supermarket, in the shadows beyond the skip.

"Oi," Dudley calls, but he knows intimidation alone isn't going to work. He should ring the police, but it's a kid the men have, or a woman, someone small, and he's instantly furious. His hands go into fists and his stride lengthens as he lowers his centre of gravity, stalking down into the shadows.

He gives the men the fight they weren't looking for, getting them away from the kid and raising some bruises while he's at it. He hasn't been spending nearly enough time in the gym with the heavy bag, and knows he'd be screwed in a boxing match, but none of them are a challenge. They smell like drink, and one's wearing plastic-rimmed glasses, and one's got a gut hanging out between his t-shirt and his belt that bounces as he backs away, stumbling over his feet, catching himself on the skip's filthy side.

Dudley grabs hold of the most tenacious man, the one who's still shouting at the kid that he'll fucking kill him, that he's a freak and a pervert and needs to get what's coming to him. Dudley plants his fist hard in his stomach and the man doubles over, bringing up the evening's worth of beer and greasy food in a wide foul splatter, nearly drenching Dudley's boots.

"Go on home," Dudley says, loading his voice with contempt.

The man's still spitting bile as he mutters how he's not going to be told what to do, but Dudley's looking at the man in glasses, who's got a rabbity expression, like he's sobered up enough to have a bit of common sense. Dudley jerks his head, and the man grabs his mate and hauls him upright and down towards the road. Their friend takes off after them when he realises, and then Dudley's alone in the alley with the kid.

"Evening," Dudley says, shaking his hands out. He's not used to hitting without gloves anymore, and needs to get home to where there's ice packs. But he's got a duty here. "I'm Dudley. I've got a mobile, you want me to get the police or an ambulance or your family or something?"

The kid looks shocky, touching himself gingerly, as if testing to see if he's just bruised or worse off. In his trainers he barely comes up to Dudley's shoulder, but he's dressed like the sort of university student who's snobbish about how authentic alternative music is. He has darkish hair that's on the long side, falling into his eyes. His face is a mess, scratched up – probably from the wall – and his nose and mouth are bloody. Dudley's seen worse – done worse, in his day – but he still pulls out his pocket handkerchief and offers it.

"Dennis," the kid says. He sounds stuffed up. "I'm good. Thanks," he adds. After a moment, he reaches out to take the handkerchief. His hand is shaking, and he nearly misses.

"I can't leave you here," Dudley says impatiently. He wonders if the kid's concussed. "I live down the next street. You should at least wash your face." Dennis holds the handkerchief over his nose with one hand and braces himself with one hand on the wall as he bends over to search the ground. "They took something off you?" Dudley's pretty sure if they did, it's gone, but he looks around.

Kicked half under the skip is one of those over-the-shoulder canvas bags students carry. When Dennis dully answers that it's his, Dudley starts tossing in the scattered contents: a couple of book, a notebook, a music player with a cracked screen. Groping under the skip while hoping there aren't any rats, Dudley comes up with something he never expected to see again, one of those magic wand things like Harry's.

It's made of dark wood and smaller than Harry's was, but then, Dennis is a compact person. The wand is snapped into three pieces that dangle together sadly on the string through the middle, and Dennis looks so stricken when Dudley half-turns to hold it out that Dudley wants to make everything all better. "Reckon I could fix it for you," he says awkwardly, stumbling as he shoves to his feet holding the wand and the bag. "I restore a lot of furniture."

"No." Dennis puts it in his pocket carefully. Dudley supposes that maybe it's a magic pocket, like having the Tardis in a pair of trousers. "It was my brother's, and he's ten years dead. Some things can't be fixed."

"Sorry," Dudley says, and then, "come on," like it's no big deal.

Dennis limps more and more slowly the further they walk, and Dudley's glad for the lift up to his second-floor flat. He talks a bit about boxing as he fixes Dennis up, giving him a few tips for personal defense, and changes the topic to his work when Dennis doesn't say anything.

Finally, when Dennis' face is scrubbed clean and he has a set of neat butterfly bandages on his cheek, Dudley sets him on the sofa with ice packs and heads into the kitchen.

"You eat meat?" he asks. After a moment, Dennis says _yeah_. Dudley pulls out the steaks that are marinating and chucks some broccoli in the steamer to cook. "My cousin was a wizard," he tells Dennis as he gets the meal going, partly to take his mind off how his bruised hands hurt, now. "We used to have owls and things at home. Is that why they were after you?"

Dennis makes a half-hearted noise like he doesn't want to talk about it. Dudley doesn't say anything. One thing he's learnt in dealing with clients is that they generally aren't specific about what they want until they have a big canvas of silence to paint words on. He figures they get intimidated, but it's not like it's his job to tell them what to think. Except for when they're being stupid.

"I'm not a wizard," Dennis says, when Dudley's got the lid on over the meat and is freshening up yesterday's left-over bean salad. "But I thought they might be. I haven't met a wizard since the war, and I thought they were the wrong sort which is why I ran. But they were just Muggles thinking I was queer."

He sounds equal parts furious and on the verge of tears, so Dudley calls the men arseholes and worse, and then gives Dennis a grin as he grabs the colander down. He tries not to look like the sort of person who spent his formative years knocking around any kid younger than him who looked queer, or clever, or weird or poor or foreign. Back then he probably would have made the same assumption, given Dennis' hair and how small he was. "Too bad I didn't tell them I was the one they were after, then." He points at the table, where he'd dumped the stuff out of his pockets. "Sure you won't call the police?"

Dennis moves the ice pack to the side of his knee, where he was kicked, or so Dudley figures by the bruises. "I live with my parents," he says. "I can't bring trouble home."

Dudley shrugs. "Better call _them_ , then," he advises. And then, because he can see Dennis' thoughts are still treacle-slow with shock, "Tell them you joined a boxing club."

Dennis snorts, but as Dudley drains the veg and starts arranging the food on their dishes, he hears him get up to get the phone, and a short bit later say _Hey, Mum_.

Over dinner they talk about football for about half a minute before changing the subject to films instead, and Dudley learns that Dennis' father drives a milk float and his mother does alterations for suits and Dennis himself works for a shop selling tropical fish.

"I like fish," Dennis announces defensively, jaw set, as if daring Dudley to mock him. When the meal's done, he offers to do the washing up, and when Dudley says _Nah_ , he limps off for home, denying he needs a cab.

Dudley isn't particularly worried, but he is curious, and he does have Dennis' home number recorded in his mobile's helpful _calls made_ list. He gets stuck on the set they're making a few days later; it's supposed to be the crime scene for a 1920s detective drama, and the wallpaper hanging ran late, so they're still moving furniture in at half past eight at night when El calls a break for tea. Dudley missed his lunch as well, because of driving out to the warehouse, and makes short work of his sandwiches. He calls his mother to ask how her doctor's appointment went, and then rings Dennis, trying not to think about it too hard.

He ends up talking to Dennis's mum and pretends, out of sudden panic, to be a client at the fish shop. She muffles the phone badly as she shouts up the stairs, and Dennis sounds embarrassed and annoyed when he takes the phone from her.

"Sorry," Dudley says.

"Caught me in the bath." Dennis coughs. "Who's this, again?"

Dudley feels stupid for calling, and hates feeling stupid, but he says what he called to say, that he just wanted to know Dennis got home all right. "That was a fucked-up thing that happened," he adds.

"Yeah, well." Dennis blows out air in frustration. "Thanks, though."

"Your mother's sitting at your elbow, isn't she?" Dudley says, grinning. "And you standing in the kitchen in nothing but a towel unable to tell me to bugger off."

Dennis actually laughs at that, and says, "I should buy you a drink sometime. Give me your number?"

Dudley does, adding, "I have to go paint a counterpane with fake blood now." El's gesturing at him, holding up the fake bloody dagger menacingly.

"Have fun," Dennis says, and hangs up.

Dennis actually does call, and they do go out, though it turns out neither of them enjoys going to pubs. Dennis is nervous in crowds and Dudley thinks of all the calories in the food and drink. The next time they go to see a film with Jet Li, and the time after that they meet up on the train to the coast and spend the day hiking. Dennis brings binoculars and points out every bird that passes, nearly walking off the cliffs several times in his enthusiasm.

It's the first time Dudley's ever seen Dennis really happy.

After eating sandwiches and drinking lukewarm tea from the flask, they lie back on the blanket and watch to see if the sun's going to come from behind the clouds. Dennis is using his jacket as a pillow and has his hands clasped over his stomach. Dudley's glad he's started keeping up with his morning runs; he's the exact opposite of tired, energy coursing though him.

"You seeing anyone now?" Dennis asks, squinting at the sky.

The question's a bit of a surprise; they don't usually talk about what most of Dudley's mates do, football and sex and – now that he's older – girlfriends and wives and kids. "Nah," Dudley says, like it's not important. "Got no time. You?"

Dennis snorts and rolls his head to give Dudley a skeptical look. "You're spending your Sunday with me," he points out, and then says all in a rush, "How'd your parents take you saying you're gay? Was it bad?"

"Thought it would be," Dudley admits. He knows he's not clever and not a quick thinker, and times like these it bothers him, even though he gets by okay most days. He's never really comfortable when he has to rely on words and not actions. He doesn't want to tell Dennis wrong. "Scary," he says finally. "My mother cried, my dad...." Dudley shrugs. "My cousin, the wizard, they were wrong about him and he's never come back home, and my dad's ashamed, since then. Like a balloon stuck with a pin. Plus," Dudley adds, "I'm bi, so I just might choose to embarrass them by bringing home an unsuitable girl."

"I wish my brother was still here," Dennis says. "He'd be the one I'd tell first. The two of us, we used to be fearless, you know? He'd say something like, _Wow, Dennis, that's so cool, can I take the pictures at your gay wedding?_ " Dennis raises his hands and then drops them to his sides. "I think I murdered the people who killed him – I really wanted to, and I had my own wand then, and it was a battle like in a video game but people were really dead, because there are spells that do that. Kill people. Colin was so. . . small, when he was dead."

"How old was he?" Dudley asks. He's thinking now that back in that alley, even with a wand in his hand, Dennis hadn't killed anyone, and maybe the choice to take the beating was bravery and not fear or cowardice. He remembers Harry standing between him and the horrible ghost-monsters that attacked them, and Harry making sure Dudley and his parents were safe before going off to fight in the wizard war. He thinks his mother knows if Harry's alive, but she never talks about him.

Dennis sighs. "Sixteen. I was two years younger."

Dudley reaches over and gives Dennis' arm a tug. "Come here, then."

"I'm fine," Dennis says, sounding annoyed, but he shifts over anyway so Dudley can get a companionable arm around his shoulders.

"So," Dudley says. "Gay, huh."

Dennis snorts. "It was the Victor Krum at Hogwarts effect. Everyone either wanted him or wanted to be him. I was young and impressionable and madly in love, and then I figured out it wasn't just him."

Dudley waits a moment and then says, "At my school, they called it the Dudley Dursley effect."

He figures he deserves the vicious tickling that he gets, and the sandwich shoved down his shirt.

On the way back to the train station, Dudley persuades Dennis not to tell his family over the holidays. He's only talked to Dennis' parents over the phone, but they seem like nice, quiet, sad people, like Dennis. He imagines they're all short, and that his mother wouldn't have any idea what to say to Mrs. Creevey, so she'd probably say the wrong thing.

He thinks that's important to mention, that the things people who are confused blurt out aren't always meant to be hurtful. "It'll work out," he says instead of saying goodbye, when they get off the train. "You'll see." Dennis just waves back over his shoulder.

Dudley spends the next weekend with his mother untangling fairy lights and putting up the holiday decorations. He's amazed that another year's gone by so fast. He spends the night in his old bedroom, which shows more signs of use by Aunt Marge these days than of his childhood. His posters are off the walls, replaced by framed prints of puppies in flowerbeds, and his trophies have been moved to the side to make room for the china figurines his aunt sends, one dog a year, each more ghastly than the previous. There's a toy poodle which Dudley always thinks looks evil.

He gets up early, starts the coffee maker going, and goes out for a roadwork session, running hard for six-hundred meter intervals, heading up Magnolia Drive, then through the park, across Boxwood and down Rosemary to the bridge. The sun's just coming up the other side of the high street, and the whole river dances with red-gold light. He has it all to himself for a minute, shadow boxing with the white clouds of his breath for a round, until two women jog past with a brisk swish-swish of pink nylon, trailing _hello_ s behind them. Dudley heads back the way he came, feeling the burn as he pushes his limits, and nearly tramples a ginger cat on his home stretch.

The cat's not bothered at all, giving him a disdainful look as it flicks its tail and heads down Wisteria Walk. Dudley starts after it before the thought's completely formed in his head, but then he sees the woman setting out a row of bowls on her front step, cats winding between her legs. The ginger cat walks right up, shoves a tiny spotted kitten out of the way, and starts eating.

"Now, Mr Blue," the woman chides, and prods the cat with her carpet slipper, which the cat promptly bites. Then she looks straight up and says, "Well, Mr Dursley."

Dudley feels suddenly and deeply that she doesn't like him at all, and shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other. His shirt is drenched with sweat, and his face is probably bright red. He swallows. "Morning, Mrs Figg." She nods and doesn't say anything. The way she watches him suggests that she doesn't trust him around her cats. "If I wanted to buy one of those magic wand things," Dudley blurts out, "where should I go?" Her eyebrows go up so high they nearly disappear under her hairnet. "For a present for a friend who's one of you," Dudley goes on, which is apparently the wrong thing to say. Mrs Figg draws herself up fiercely and glares.

" _One of us_ ," she repeats, as if she's never heard such cheek.

"Fought in your war," Dudley says, feeling the slow burn of anger start up, even though Mrs Figg was tinier than Dennis and old and batty.

After a long moment, she says, "Well," and her eyes seem to bore right into him. Then she blows out a breath and jerks her head to the door. "That's a conversation we should have indoors."

She makes Dudley leave his trainers at the door and sit on a bathtowel on the sofa, and hands him a cup of tea that tastes like grass clippings. Starched white lace and cat hair cover all the furniture, a real fire is burning away in the fireplace, and on the mantelpiece there's a collection of framed pictures of Harry. In one he's on a broomstick, in another he's got his arm around Mrs Figg and is holding a gigantic cat. There's one of Harry and what Dudley supposes must be his family: a red-haired woman, two boys, and a chubby red-haired baby. In the picture, the boys keep elbowing each other until the baby wakes up and starts crying.

"What's your friend's name, then?" Mrs Figg asks, perching on the edge of a rickety armchair. She has a pad of yellow paper and a purple marker, and is poised to take notes.

Dudley frowns. "I can't tell you," he says. Dennis would never talk to him again, he's fairly sure of that. Dennis is scared both of the magic police – and their prison guard monsters – and of the wizards who lost the war and might want revenge. "He just kept the wand for the memories, and then it got broken. He probably wouldn't use it, even, but I think it's all he has left, of magic." Dudley leaves out the bit about Dennis' brother; he has no idea how many brothers died, no clue as to how big the wizard's war really was.

"Wands choose the wizard," Mrs Figg says with finality. "They're not like socks."

"Okay," Dudley says, and sets his teacup down on a lace-covered side table. "Thanks anyway."

"Shut up, I'm helping you," Mrs Figg snaps, and takes painstaking care with the note she's writing. When she's done she folds the paper over and whistles shrilly. Mr Blue pushes through the front door cat flap, and Mrs Figg gives him the note, which he holds in his mouth. She gets up and tosses a handful of stuff in the fire, which goes green, and says, "Ollivanders," as the cat walks into the fire and disappears.

Dudley's gaping, and Mrs Figg sniffs disdainfully at him.

"Wands are expensive," she tells him. "And your Muggle money won't work. But I've been wanting someone to come and clean my gutters, and the shed in the back."

She looks like she expects him to argue. Dudley just nods and heads back to his parents', to put on working clothes. His mother thinks it's terribly sweet of him to help out poor lonely old Mrs Figg, and promises to bake him a cake for tea. His father, absorbed in some kind of mind-meld with the telly shopping, shouts that the cats had better not piss on his ladder.

Mrs Figg turns out to be a wizard super-hero. Later that afternoon, when Dudley's dirty head to toe, the man from the shop comes through the fire to delivers a whole box of wands, all different sorts, in person. He says, "Oh, certainly, madam can keep the selection as long as madam wishes, and of course madam will be given a discount, we are honoured to help any member of the Order of the Phoenix."

After the man leaves, Mrs Figg frowns at the fire and says, "Isn't it odd, none of his brothers are half as polite, but nothing he says ever sounds sincere. Still new to wandmaking, I suppose, and a bit twitchy since the war, considering. Harry's brother-in-law," she adds for Dudley's benefit, with a judgmental nod, and hands him the box. "Don't let your parents see this, just you deliver it straight to your friend. And tell him," she pokes Dudley in the ribs, "he can come back."

"Don't think he wants to," Dudley mumbles, shoving the box into his rucksack. "Thank you." He sidles towards the door, trying not to step on any of the cats. He's properly terrified of Mrs Figg and her magical powers now, and wonders if she can call down the whole Phoenix Order like _Thunderbirds are go_ or something.

"You're not half as hopeless as I'd thought you would be," Mrs Figg tells him, waving from her front step as he collects the ladder and toolbox, and fishes a pair of kittens out of his jacket pocket. "Come back in the spring, and bring a push-mower."

Dudley's never been good at giving other people presents. Usually he forgets, and when he does remember he never gets the right thing. He spends the next week looking at each of the wands in the box and thinking that Dennis will refuse to take one. It's too much, worse even than jewelry or underwear. Dennis would probably be happy with an illustrated guide to fish or birds, or maybe even a camera. Dudley still has no idea how much a wand costs, but he's going to be paying with yardwork for ages, and it's not as if he can use one himself for anything more than a back-scratcher.

He puts off calling Dennis so long that Dennis calls him, asking if Dudley's been busy. When Dudley implies that yes, he has been, Dennis tells him all about the chaos in his shop, the idiot customer who wanted to keep his discus fish in with his Frontosa cichlids, and how hard it was for fish to be carried home for the holidays – or conversely, to be left to their fates in locked-up offices and halls of residence.

"We sell a lot of replacement fish in January," Dennis says glumly. "And I always feel like we _shouldn't_."

"I got you a present," Dudley says, abrupt with nervousness, trying to ignore any parallels to replacing dead fish.

"Cool." Dennis really does sound pleased. "I don't have anything for you."

"It's not that kind of present," Dudley says. "The kind where we swap. It's just, I thought of you." And all of a sudden, the conversation has bloated from slightly sticky to hulking awkward monstrousness. Dudley paces and keeps his mouth clamped shut tight, so as to keep any other words from escaping.

Dennis says _cool_ again, and then asks if Dudley wants him to come over, seeing as he's just heading home from work now and is only forty minutes away, including the time to pick up take-away from the shop by the station. Dudley's traitor tongue says _sure_.

Forty minutes is long enough to give his flat a good hard cleaning, and he has to throw the windows open because the artificial floral scent in the toilet scrub and the artificial orange of the kitchen cleanser go really badly with the artificial green apple-scented spray he uses on the fabrics. He pulls on a jumper and polishes his dumbbells. He puts on music and then turns it off immediately.

When Dennis arrives, there's a tense moment when Dudley doesn't know what to say and Dennis looks around, noticing how clean everything is. But then Dennis says, "Why's it freezing in here?" and wraps his arms around their dinner for warmth, and Dudley feels as if things might be okay.

Dudley shuts the window and tosses Dennis one of the blankets from the bed, and they eat sitting on the sofa, television on with the sound turned off. Pretty soon, the room only smells like Indian food.

Finally, Dudley says, "Here," and pushes over the box, which has been sitting like a bomb in the centre of the coffee table. "If there's one in there you can use, then it's yours."

Dennis raises his eyebrows as if to point out how ridiculously dramatic Dudley's being, but his knees are pulled up to his chin and he's wrapped in green plaid wool. He looks too comfortable to be properly sarcastic.

Dennis reaches out, pulls the table closer, and flips the hinged lid of the box up. He glances in, and then his eyes go wide, and very round, and he looks incredibly young.

"There's different kinds," Dudley says, the words clunky and probably ignorant. What does he know about magic?

"Mine was," Dennis starts, and then shakes his head. He looks down into the box and licks his upper lip nervously. "Like I said, I'm not a wizard anymore."

"You could try," Dudley says, and stuffs a pakora in his mouth.

"You're such the expert," Dennis says, but he doesn't sound angry. He picks up one of the wands, hefts it, and then sets it back and chooses another. "I don't think these are the dangerous ones," he says consideringly. He flicks the wand through the air, and tiny orange bubbles puff out. They float up to the ceiling and roll around for a bit before popping.

"What do you expect from mail-order?" Dudley mutters around his food. He takes a quick swig of lager from his bottle. "We could go to the shop. I know the guy there." At any rate, Mrs Figg does, and Dudley doubts he'll be going anywhere magical without her and her powders and powers.

"You are so," Dennis says, and doesn't finish the sentence with words, but wrinkles his nose and draws a circle in the air with the wand he's holding. A small bird loops into existence and wings back and forth the length of the room, cheeping, and then swoops down to perch just over Dudley's ear. He keeps his hair in a brush cut, but the little claws still find a way to cling tight.

Dennis leans over to peer at the bird. Dudley's blanket slithers down to the floor "I think it's definitely a canary."

"I think that wand's got a thing for you," Dudley says. "There's a _bird_ in my hair."

Dennis makes a dismissive noise, as if birds aren't anything to get het up about, and moves just that bit closer to press a soft, precise kiss to Dudley's mouth. He shifts away before Dudley can kiss him back. Dudley's pretty sure Dennis is blushing. Dennis seems like the kind of person who would resent blushing.

"You call that a first kiss, Creevey?" Dudley asks, reaching out and catching hold of the first convenient part of Dennis. He tugs.

Dennis' shoulder rises and falls under Dudley's hand. "My options are limited. I mean, there's this bird in your hair," he points out. "I can't very well ravish you."

Dudley leans forward, though there's no sense in trying to project menace when he knows he looks ridiculous. "So magic up a birdcage."

"I left school after third year," Dennis says. He raises the wand again and shakes it a little. "I never had formal studies in birdcages."

"Fake it," Dudley suggests dryly, moving his hand up to curl around Dennis' neck, his finger brushing just under his ear. He's not going to think of how small Dennis must have been back then, when he stopped being a student and became a soldier fighting off horrible things, like the monster that came all the way to Little Whinging to kill him and Harry. Dudley still has nightmares about that. He does decide, though, if any monsters do show up, this time he's going to stand between them and Dennis and not be a coward.

"I did have an owl once." Dennis grins, one side of his mouth going up higher than the other. He's so close Dudley can see the faint freckles along his sun-tanned cheekbones. He shifts his grip on the wand to one that looks stiffly practiced and says something under his breath; magic words, Dudley supposes, because suddenly there's a three-legged bar stool falling onto the coffee table with an appalling clatter, crushing most of the leftover take-away but fortunately missing the box of expensive magic wands. It has a leather seat in hideous green suede. "Huh," Dennis says, and shakes the wand again.

The canary cheeps in alarm, and takes a bite out of Dudley's ear.

Dennis takes a fortifying breath and tries one more time. The words sound the same, but with a more exaggerated stress. Dudley has a brief unpleasant flashback to his lessons in Spanish – Piers had insisted that it was the easiest language to learn, but that hadn't been true. Dudley has no idea how foreigners ever manage.

This time, the slow movement of the wand through the air draws up something a bit closer to what they want. Dudley grabs hold of it before it can roll onto the floor. It's made up of twisted aluminium bars and shaped like a pair of buckets stuck end to end, with useless bits of filigree. It's shiny and ugly, and Dennis looks frustrated, but there's a heart-shaped door in one side. Dudley's not complaining.

He sets the thing down on the table, next to the bar stool, and lets Dennis lure the bird into the cage with tiny pieces of naan. By the time Dennis latches the door, the bird's already been named. Dennis conjures a dark purple cloth as an afterthought, and covers the cage, looking both embarrassed and resolute.

"So," Dudley says, and points at the tacky stool and the cheap-looking yet ostentatious birdcage. "You magic people are desperate for interior decorators, aren't you?"

"We have other things on our minds," Dennis says loftily, and shoves Dudley back on the sofa.

Dudley's got no problems with being manhandled. Most of the men he's been with he met at the gym or at sports matches, and sex with them is amiable mutual selfishness, each using the other to get off hard and fast. A lot of manhandling is involved. Dudley's a bit worried that he might crush Dennis accidentally if things get rough, so for the moment, he's willing to just roll with the pushes.

For the time being, he's got Dennis lying on top of him, hands braced to either side of his head, so Dudley pulls him down and gives him a proper kiss, half romantic and half sexy. Dennis is enthusiastic, turning his head to the side to avoid bumping noses and sticking his tongue in Dudley's mouth. Dudley sucks, not hard enough to hurt, just enough to suggest that he's amenable to sucking all kinds of things: tongues, fingers, nipples, cock. Dennis' hips jerk, and Dudley puts a hand on his arse, and Dennis gasps right into Dudley's mouth.

Dennis sits up abruptly, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth before tugging at Dudley's shirt. "Take this off?"

"I will if you do," Dudley counters, and gets another of Dennis' slightly manic grins. It goes to his head; he wants Dennis to look like that all the time.

Dennis picks up the wand again. "This I learnt from the older boys," he says. The wand goes up and down like a baton, and Dennis says more magic, and suddenly they're both naked. A second later, Dudley sees their clothes fall piece by piece into the kitchen sink, which fortunately is sparkling clean. Dennis twists around to watch. "I didn't quite mean to do that." He shivers. "I forgot how freezing it is here."

"I can warm you up," Dudley says, and manhandles Dennis down and under him, with a bit of a struggle and a lot of laughter. The magic wand, fortunately, ends up on the floor before it can put an eye out, and Dennis' cock snugs right up next to Dudley's, like it's trying to escape the cold, too.

Dennis curls his hands around Dudley's arms and squeezes. Dudley flexes for him, and Dennis bites his lip.

"Better than Victor Glum," Dudley tells him.

Dennis shoves his hips up. If he weighed the same as Dudley he might have bucked him off, but all he manages to do is rub their cocks together in a way that makes Dudley see stars. "Less showing off, more ravishing."

"You want ravishing?" Dudley asks. He enjoys being strong, so he stubbornly keeps up with his squats and roadwork and rope-skipping even though he's never going win another championship. He likes to think all the training makes him pretty awesome in bed. He rolls his hips in slow, disciplined circles and kisses Dennis, and would be perfectly happy dragging this out all night.

But Dennis is impatient and has his own ideas about how fast he wants to come, and he shoves up with his legs and digs his hands into Dudley's arse and licks his way down Dudley's neck and makes Dudley's control slip into desperation with a few electrifying bites along his shoulder. They end up getting competitive, fighting against each other's sweat-slick bodies to come first. Dennis is the first to go over the edge, tossing his head back and shouting loud enough to scare the neighbours, his fingers clenching tight enough to leave bruises. Dudley's not far behind, cock lubed with come now, and has one of the top-ten orgasms of his life with Dennis' arms around him.

His afterglow doesn't last any longer than the magical bubbles did, because of the faint breathless protest of, "Ack, you're crushing me," from between Dudley's ribs and the sofa cushions.

"It's your own fault," Dudley says, moving over onto what he hopes aren't body parts. The upper part of Dennis emerges, looking the way people do in films when they've been electrocuted, hair on end and manic. "This sofa wasn't meant for sex, you know."

"But it's going to __smell like sex for weeks now," Dennis says, sounding self-satisfied. "Ha."

"Ha yourself." Dudley gives Dennis a soppy wet smooch just to make him flail. "You need a shower. Might want to ring your parents if you're staying."

"Could stay," Dennis says. He stretches one arm down and feels along the floor until he comes up with the magic wand and the blanket, which he wraps up in again. "I missed magic being. . . magical. Like being so cold you forget warm, only it creeps up on you and you think maybe it's always been that way."

"Yeah, well." Dudley pushes up off the sofa and stretches. His room's a wreck, and he's warm with happiness down into his bones. "You're in charge of cleaning the magical canary cage. See how long the nostalgia lasts." He extends his hand, palm up, and Dennis takes it and lets himself be pulled up and into Dudley's arms.

Dennis flicks his wand lazily, and suddenly there are canaries everywhere.

.: .: .: .: .: .: .:  
t h e .:. end  
:. :. :. :. :. :. :.


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